Kanyakumari-Kashmir Round trip - Day 13 - Dalhousie - Khajjar - Chamba - Dalhousie

Day 13 - Dalhousie - Khajjar - Chamba - Dalhousie - stay in Dalhousie

Kilometers covered - 130 KMs

Walking - 11000+ steps

It was very difficult to start early (the weather was so pleasant not allowing us off the bed) A late start - say 7.30 AM. We went straight to the parking junction to have hot poori and chole for breakfast :)

The first stop was at Beeji's Park - on the road that connects Dalhousie to Khajjiar. The place is envisioned and curated by Dr.G.S.Dhillon, Chairman of Dalhousie Public School. This defence park in Dalhousie is dedicated to all mothers. Apart from school infrastructure, the management spend significant time and energy in maintaining the whole hill where the school is located. 





As planned, we started the trek of the day to Dainkund Peak - really a long trek :) On reaching the peak, you'll get to see scenic snow mountain views, Pholani Mata Temple and deep valleys all over. There are 2 ways (flower path for ordinary walkers and a tiger path for adventure enthusiasts) we took the tiger to climb and flower during return :) 








Post the trek, we visited the Khajjar - Mini Swiss of India picnic area. Had bhel puri, gol gappa and fruit salad (too costly considering it's a crowded picnic spot). Personally, I wouldn't exaggerate this as Mini Swiss because you'll see these kinda green picnic areas on every hillstation you visit. Being a Coimbatorean (have seen umpteen places in and around Nilgiris, Valparai, Megamalai, Kodai, Munnar etc..,)






There's a Nag Mandir and you shouldn't miss visiting this place. 3-4 kilometers from here, there's a big statue of standing Lord Shiva - we're sure you'll be excited watching it.






Moments before we took the car from Lord Shiva statue, a person in 2 wheeler stopped us for a sales pitch on paragliding :) We explained our time constraints, however he gave us a better deal and ensured speedy ride. He put us in a car that stopped 2 KMs away for a steep trek to the paragliding point. As soon as seeing the spot, I explained Mahadevan regarding the saftey constraints and uneven ramp for balloon take-off. We noticed around 50+ people waiting for the ride and 4-5 take-offs were really bad hurting the rider or the passenger.

We understood that it will eat another 1.5 hours of time, spoke to them and cancelled our ride. We started climbing down to notice a major mishap in take-off where both the rider and passenger rolled on the cliff 6-7 times hurting themselves :( they couldn't run smoothly on the ramp coz it was too bumpy and grumpy. Seeing that, most of them cancelled the ride. Please ensure to do these adventures only on a properly laid ramp for take-off. Fortunately, with due credit to rain and God we escaped without doing the ride. This incident will last forever in our memory. 



Suddenly, hailstorm - woww!!!! followed by drizzling and a moderate rainfall - a food cart served us hot and spicy Rajma Chawal - chips as side. Post lunch, we slowly rode to Chamba, Himachal Pradesh amidst rainfall. The rain stopped around 3.30 PM - we were in Laxmi Narayanan Temple - Chamba then.







Fuelling at Mehta Avatar Chand & Co - IOCL pump - Chamba, HP. On the way back to Hotel Balaji, Banikhet we stopped near Chamera Lake viewpoint. Bought litchies and peaches for dinner - for the first time in this trip - we stayed in the same location and hotel :)





Luv,

Krishna & Mahadevan

insta - viswanatkr01

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